NAY, LADY, ASK ME NOT TO DWELL.

BY NATHANIEL GREENE.

Nay, lady, ask me not to dwell

Upon the theme you gave;
For, living only in the past,

I could but hope to save
Some relic from oblivion's shore,
Which time is stealing from my store.

In earlier and in happier days,

When life was bright and new,
I yielded all my heart to love,

And felt and wrote like you.
But now, my friend, that dream is past-
A dream too sweet, too pure to last.

Alas, it is a saddening thought

That life's delightful spring,
With all its fresh and budding hopes,

So soon should spread its wing-
Deserting hearts, one moment blest,
Then left to wither in the breast.

But thus it is ;-and memory
Is all that can remain-

The Indian summer of the soul,

That kindly comes again-
Reviving, with its souvenirs,
The loves and hopes of early years.

MY FATHER DIED ERE I COULD TELL.

BY SUMNER L. FAIRFIELD.

My father died ere I could tell

The love my young heart felt for him: My sister like a blossom fell ;

Her cheek grew cold, her blue eye dim,
Just as the hallowed hours came by,

When she was dearest unto me;
And vale and stream and wood and sky

Were beautiful as Araby.

And, one by one, the friends of youth

Departed to the land of dreams : And soon I felt that friends, in sooth,

Were few as flowers by mountain streams; And solitude came o'er me then,

And early I was taught to treasure Lone thoughts in glimmering wood and glen;

Now they are mine in utmost measure.

But boyhood's sorrows, though they leave

Their shadows on the spirit's dial, Cannot by their deep spell bereave

They herald but a darker trial; And such 'tis mine e'en now to bear

In the sweet radiance of thine eye, And 'tis the wildness of despair

To paint vain love that cannot die.

Yet thus it must be- like the flower,

That sheds amid the dusky night The

rays it drank at midday hour, My spirit pours abroad its light, When all the beauty and the bloom,

The blessedness of love hath gone, And left the darkness of the tomb,

Upon the glory of its throne.

The hour hath comemit cannot part

Deterring pride—one hurried deed Hath fixed its seal upon my heart,

And ever it must throb and bleed, Till life, and love, and anguish o'er,

The spirit soars to its first birth, And meets on heaven's own peaceful shore

The heart it loved too well on earth.

FANNY WILLOUGHBY.

BY WILLIAM THOMPSON BACON.

“I LOVE thee, Fanny Willoughby,

And that's the why, ye see,
I woo thee, Fanny Willoughby,

And cannot let thee be;
I sing for thee, I sigh for thee,

And O! you may depend on't,
I'll weep for thee, I'll die for thee,

And that will be the end on't.

“I love thy form, I worship it,

To me it always seems As if it were the counterfeit

Of some I've seen in dreams;
It makes me feel as if I had

An angel by my side,
And then I think I am so bad,

You will not be my bride.

“I love the golden locks that glow

About that brow of thine;
I always thought them .so and so,'

But now, they are divine;
They're like an Alpine torrent's rush

The finest under heaven; They're like the bolted clouds, that flush

The sky of summer's even.

“I love thy clear and hazel eye

They say the blue is fairer; And I confess that formerly

I thought the blue the rarer; But when I saw thine eye so clear,

Though perfectly at rest, I did kneel down, and I did swear

The hazel was the best.

“I love thy hand so pale and soft,

The which, in days ‘lang syne,' Ye, innocent as trusting, oft

Would softly clasp in mine; I thought it sure was chiseled out

Of marble by the geniuses, The which the poets rant about,

The virgins and the Venuses.

“I love the sounds that from thy lip

Gush holily and free,
As rills that from their caverns slip,

And prattle to the sea;
The melody for aye doth steal

To hearts by sorrow riven,
And then I think and then I feel

That music comes from heaven.

“Now listen, Fanny Willoughby,

To what I cannot keep, My days ye rob of jollity,

My nights ye rob of sleep;